One of the biggest hazard of a firearm is that it may fire upon impact when dropped upon it rearend. In the industry there are dozens of lawsuits each year because the handgun was dropped and upon impact fired, injuring or even killing an individual. Thus, a device that prevents a handgun from firing when dropped is clearly sought after by the industry. There has been a large number of patents granted in this area to prevent handgun with hammers from firing when dropped. Some of these include Khoury U.S. Pat. No. 4,555,861, Wilhelm U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,317, Volkmar U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,316 and Meidel U.S. Pat. No. 4,454,637. However, all these patents apply to a handgun with a hammer. The inventor's system apply to a firearm without a hammer. The inventor's system also works no matter whether the safety is on or off. It is an object of the present invention to create a safety device for a firearm without a hammer that prevents accidental discharge when the firearm is dropped and the rear portion of the firearm make impact with a surface. A further object of this invention is to provide this safety mechanism that achieve these objects while being rugged has a relative low manufacture cost.
The inventor has found that when a hammerless handgun is dropped and makes impact with the ground with its barrel pointed upward the inertia of the trigger actually causes the trigger to engage. The invention due to its inertia will move at a similar rate to the trigger and counteract the actions of the trigger upon impact. The feature that creates this is a small spring loaded plate that has a notch in it. The advantages of this invention is that this plate can be easily and inexpensive manufacture by a simple stamping method and is inexpensive to assemble within the gun. Further advantage of this invention is that no matter whether the safety is on or off the hammerless firearm will not fire upon impact when dropped upon its rearend.